File photo: Actress Felicity Huffman with her brother, Moore Huffman Jr., outside court. She and 13 other people have agreed to plead guilty to participating in what prosecutors call the largest college admissions scam uncovered in U.S. history.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – OCTOBER 03: Co-Founder and CEO of the Rise Fund and Co-Founder and Managing Partner of TPG Growth Bill McGlashan speaks onstage during Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on October 3, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA - February 11 - Manuel Henriquez and Liz Henriquez, seen in San Francisco in 2012, are facing conspiracy charges in the college admissions fraud investigation. (Handout photo)

A tweet from Todd Blake, indicted in the college admissions conspiracy case. (Twitter)

Nancy Lane/Boston Herald

BOSTON MA. – APRIL 3: Actress Lori Loughlin walks into Moakley Federal Court to be arraigned on charges associated with a college admission scandal, on April 3, 2019 in Boston, MA.(Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

BOSTON MA. – APRIL 3: Emerson College students Vivi Bonomie and Mackenzie Thomas hold up signs for actress Lori Loughlin, who was going to be arraigned on charges associated with the college admission scandal, arrives at federal court on April 3, 2019 in Boston, MA.(Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

Silicon Valley real estate executive Bruce Isackson had admitted in a secretly-recorded meeting last fall that he was paranoid he would get caught for bribing his two daughters’ way into USC and UCLA, that the embarrassment would be overwhelming, that “Oh my God, it would be just, yeah, ugh.”

On Monday, Isackson and his wife, Davina — along with 11 other parents, including actress Felicity Huffman and three other wealthy parents from the Bay Area — agreed to plead guilty to their part in the worst college admissions scandal in U.S. history and are likely headed to prison.

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There were no “ughs” in the apology that the Isacksons’ lawyer released Monday:

“No words can express how profoundly sorry we are for what we have done,” it said. “Our duty as parents was to set a good example for our children and instead we have harmed and embarrassed them by our misguided decisions.”

Also agreeing to plead guilty to their part in the scheme are Peter Jan Sartorio and Marjorie Klapper, each from Menlo Park, and Napa winemaker Agustin Huneeus Jr., according to court documents. A spokesperson for Huneeus’s lawyer said he would not comment. Messages left for lawyers representing Sartorio and Klapper weren’t returned Monday.

Prosecutors said in court filings they will recommend prison time and hefty fines for parents in some of the cases — the charges carry up to 20 years — although the final decision will be left up to a judge.

The 13 parents — plus a former University of Texas at Austin tennis coach who also agreed to plead guilty Monday — are among 50 people accused by federal prosecutors in Boston of engaging in schemes masterminded by college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer that involved helping their children cheat on college entrance exams and paying a total of $25 million in bribes to secure their children admission at well-known universities.

Bruce Isackson will also plead guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS for deducting the bribes he paid through Singer’s bogus foundation as charitable donations from his taxes, federal prosecutors say. The couple is also cooperating with investigators.

In a statement Monday, Huffman, a former star of the TV series “Desperate Housewives,” expressed “deep regret and shame” for her part in the scheme.

“I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly,” she said in the statement.

Her daughter “knew absolutely nothing” about her actions, Huffman wrote, “and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her.”

William Rick Singer leaves Federal Court after he agreed to plead guilty in a college admissions scheme that he operated. Key Worldwide Foundation’s president is Rick Singer of Newport Beach, who stands accused at the center of a massive college-admissions cheating scandal.(Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images) Scott Eisen/Getty Images

All are tied to Singer, the Newport Beach counselor who got his start in Sacramento and guaranteed admission to some of the country’s top schools — including Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, USC, and UCLA — for a price. Once the FBI found out about his scheme, Singer cooperated with the FBI and agreed to wear a wire to secretly record his clients, either on the phone or in person, admitting their roles. Transcripts of those recordings — including with the Isacksons — were printed in a 204-page complaint last month.

Some parents paid Singer upwards of $75,000 to arrange for proctors to help students cheat on the ACT and SAT tests, and hundreds of thousands more to bribe university officials, most in the university athletic departments, where the students submitted fake sports credentials to take coveted spots on recruitment lists. With Singer’s help, at least one of them who had never competed in water polo had her face photoshopped onto the body of bathing-suit wearing real athlete as part of her application.

Last week, Stanford University announced it had expelled an unidentified female student who authorities said had fabricated sailing credentials on her application. Last month, the school fired sailing coach John Vandemoer after he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of tainted money from parents for the university’s sailing program.

Stanford expels student associated with college bribery scandal – Read the story

The Isacksons paid Singer a total of $600,000 — including Facebook stock — to bribe USC and UCLA officials to get their daughters into those schools over the last few years, prosecutors say.

The Isackson daughter at USC was admitted as a rowing recruit, even though she was not competitive in rowing and instead was an “avid equestrian,” according to prosecutors. The daughter at UCLA, who took a spot on the soccer team even though she wasn’t a competitive player, remains enrolled while the university investigates whether she was aware of her parents’ scheme, the university said Monday.

Singer was wearing a wire in October when he met Bruce Isackson at his Hillsborough home and explained that his “foundation” was being audited by the IRS and they needed to get their stories straight if someone called about it.

“I am so paranoid about this f—— thing you were talking about,” Isackson told Singer. “I don’t like talking about it on the phone, you know.”

He said he could imagine the fallout, “the front page story” about “what’s going on behind the scenes, and then, you know the embarrassment to everyone.”

Isackson stepped down from his company within days of the federal indictment. The first line of his company biography noted he was an alumnus of UCLA. Prosecutors are recommending 37 months in prison and $150,000 in fines for Bruce Isackson and 27 months in prison and another $100,000 in fines for his wife, Davina, according to her lawyer David Willingham.

Huneeus, 53, of San Francisco, whose family owns Napa’s Quintessa winery, admitted he paid Singer’s bogus charity a total of $300,000 to cover the cost, among other things, of having a private proctor inflate his daughter’s SAT score, creating a falsified athletic profile for her, and greasing her application to USC by bribing the school’s senior associate athletic director, Donna Heinel, and the women’s water polo coach, Jovan Vavic.

Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park paid $15,000 to Singer to have a proctor correct some of her son’s answers on the ACT test, which was submitted to “various colleges and universities in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere,” prosecutors said.

Sartorio, 53, also paid Singer $15,000 to have a proctor meet his daughter in Los Angeles and correct her answers on the ACT. In late 2017, the score was submitted as part of her applications to “various colleges and universities in California, Florida, and elsewhere,” prosecutors said.

It isn’t clear when the parents are due back in court to enter their guilty pleas.

Some Bay Area parents charged in the scandal still have not resolved their cases, including:

Palo Alto radiation oncologist Greg Colburn and his wife, Amy, who allegedly paid $25,000 in cash and stock to have someone else take their son’s college admission test;

Bill McGlashan, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent private equity investors, who allegedly paid $250,000 to Singer in bribe money and discussed using Photoshop to make a fake football profile for his son to try to get him into USC or Stanford;

Todd and Diane Blake of Ross who allegedly paid a total of $250,0000 to get their daughter into USC;

Private equity company founder Manuel Henriquez and his wife, Elizabeth, of Atherton, who allegedly paid $400,000 to an intermediary to bribe the Georgetown University head tennis coach to “recruit” their oldest daughter to a team she would never join.

Huffman, who is married to the actor William H. Macy, wasn’t the only Hollywood actress caught up in the scandal. Lori Laughlin, who starred in the sitcom Full House, is still fighting charges that she bribed her daughters’ ways into USC.

Julia Prodis Sulek has been a general assignment reporter for the Bay Area News Group, based in San Jose, her hometown, since the late 1990s. She has covered everything from plane crashes to presidential campaigns, murder trials to immigration debates. Her specialty is narrative storytelling.

Joseph Geha is a multimedia journalist covering Fremont, Milpitas, Union City, and Newark for the Bay Area News Group. His prior work has been seen in multiple Bay Area outlets, including SF Weekly, as well as on KQED and KLIV radio. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay (Hayward), a Fremont native and a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan.

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